Tobago’s history comes alive at Heritage Festival opening

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Shaw Park Com­plex was trans­formed in­to a his­tor­i­cal the­atre on Thurs­day evening for the gala open­ing of the 39th To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val.

The ex­trav­a­gant pro­duc­tion ho­n­oured one of the pi­o­neers of the fes­ti­val, George Stan­ley Beard, who died two months ago.

Un­der the theme “She Be­comes Whole,” the show ex­plored themes such as slav­ery and its im­pact on the en­slaved.

The open­ing night por­trayed the im­por­tance of folk­lore, cul­ture and tra­di­tion and how these have helped To­bag­o­ni­ans fos­ter pride by re­con­nect­ing with their African an­ces­try and iden­ti­ty.

In a scene from the pro­duc­tion, an ac­tor play­ing George, was shown strug­gling to rec­on­cile with his African roots and Eu­ro­pean name.

In a thought-pro­vok­ing di­a­logue, George not­ed the im­por­tance of re­mem­ber­ing the fore­fa­thers.

“I want to tell it, all of it. The re­al his­to­ry. The sto­ry—our sto­ry,” he de­clared.

In an epiphany, he added, “My name is not George; George was giv­en to me by a sys­tem, a sys­tem that saw labour, not a per­son. That name be­longs to that sys­tem.”

Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett said the trib­ute to Beard was the most mem­o­rable part of the evening.

“We saw dif­fer­ent snip­pets and snap­shots over the 39 years of this cel­e­bra­tion. What stood out for me was the fact we ho­n­oured the late George Stan­ley Beard, pay­ing homage to him in this way. His wife just came and told us how im­pressed she was and the fact she felt so ho­n­oured we cel­e­brat­ed him this year.”

While not­ing the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing the past, Hack­ett was proud to see the cast re­flect the next gen­er­a­tion.

“We made a large cast­ing call, and a lot of young per­sons, a lot of per­sons were am­a­teurs who nev­er did this in their life. We gave them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go on the stage for the first time.

“This is what it means to pass on the ba­ton of our cul­tur­al her­itage.”

Hack­ett, elec­toral rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Bethes­da/Les Coteaux, not­ed her area hosts three fes­ti­val ac­tiv­i­ties, but she be­lieves each vil­lage has some­thing ex­cep­tion­al to of­fer.

Hack­ett is al­ready look­ing for­ward to next year’s 40th cel­e­bra­tions, which would be dubbed “the home­com­ing”. She said the di­as­po­ra would be called back to To­ba­go to en­joy the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Pa­tron Karen Alexan­der told Guardian Me­dia she thor­ough­ly en­joyed the pro­duc­tion and is ex­cit­ed for the next cou­ple of weeks.

“It was fan­tas­tic, and be­cause it was so good, I am re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about the rest of the fes­ti­val. I am sure it is gonna be awe­some, and I hope all will come out and sup­port,” she said.

Alexan­der said she will be at­tend­ing the Mo­ri­ah Ole Time Wed­ding, Sala­ka Feast and Les Coteaux Folk­tales and Su­per­sti­tions.

“I look for­ward to all of them, re­al­ly, I am go­ing to be par­tic­i­pat­ing ful­ly.”